Abstract:

The school library, understood as a "resource center for reading, information and learning, as a specific educational outline integrated into the life of the school, which supports teachers in the exercise of their teaching practices and facilitates learning for students of curricular contents, as well as the acquisition of reading skills and habits, in a dynamic open to the educational community "(Comisión Técnica de Bibliotecas Escolares, 2011, p.12) is nowadays a prioritary element of the school and a thrust basic of all educational action.

The mission of this work is to know the functioning of school libraries in relation to the material and human resources available. For this purpose, a descriptive survey study was carried out by applying a questionnaire, built ad hoc, to a sample of 858 teachers from the school library support team of primary, secondary and post-compulsory education schools supported by Public funds of the Comunidad Autónoma of Galicia. The variables under study are documentary resources (composition of the collection, diversity of media, number of documents, origin, selection and updating of the fund, technical treatment, ordering, sufficiency and accessibility) and personal (profile of the responsible, training, dedication hours, functions, Library Commission, support teams and staff after school hours).

The main results obtained, explain that the funds from the school library of the centers of the study are enough, adequate, up-to-date, well-kept and they cover the needs of all the curricular areas and the registration of the funds is centralized and computerized. In addition, the teaching staff of the school library support team usually devotes more than two hours a week, apart from direct teaching, to the tasks of supporting the library; in relation to their functions, they support the person responsible for the library in the organization and revitalization of the same and cooperate in the design and implementation of scheduled activities, in the development of reading and reading habit; they are also frequently responsible for collecting information, materials and resources necessary for the operation of the library, the preparation of the Annual Work Plan of the Library and the establishment of criteria for the acquisition and updating of funds

Keywords:

School library, human resources, material resources, teachers, Primary School, Secondary School.